Nineteen Years Later
by zyq
Summary: An alternate take, set during the last parts of the epilogue.


Standard disclaimers apply. Idea is credited to my roommate. She told me to run with it, so I tripped and stumbled and half limped it away.

.-.

A gypsy once warned him, in whispers seductive and teasing, that if two people spent enough time together, feelings of love would inevitably develop. After all, humans are fickle, yet flexible beings, whose perceptions of love and hate are but balanced upon a needle point.

He took no heed to her mad ramblings, words carefully chosen for their vagueness and faux insight. Preaching such intangible concepts as love and hate to a Lord of Darkness, she was a foolish woman who had lost her touch indeed. And he was young then, young enough that with two words tinged in laughter and scorn, easily ended her misery with a flash of brilliant green.

Watching the small back jump from platform to train, the slight stumble of excitement on the steps, was endearing these days, perhaps even cute. Closing the carriage door behind the small boy with a gentle firmness came naturally, an action the him of nineteen years prior would have condemned as weak.

How the times have changed. How he has changed.

Over the years he had remembered and pondered back upon those words, the words of a now faceless woman among thousands he had slaughtered. Given the extent of his long obsession over the death of one Boy Who Lived, his former followers would surely question his actions now.

"Why are they _staring_?"

It wasn't that he never had a chance. No, it was quite the opposite, rather. Even he himself wondered, almost two decades later, why he was standing here, smiling a smile that wasn't his, leading a life through the window of a third person bystander.

"Don't let it worry you. It's me. I'm extremely famous."

Perhaps it was because of _her_, the lingering effects of a personality long gone. Perhaps it was to fill the void, the curiosity left from yearning for a happy childhood that never was. Perhaps it was love.

Or perhaps he longed for a revenge served upon platters so cold it would burn.

The train was leaving. There had been laughter and joking jests, empty words that drifted past him, unprocessed. He watched with calm and unreadable brown eyes at the man known as Harry Potter wave frantically to the departing children.

Ah, Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The Savior of the Wizarding World. The man who turned his own curse against him, twice. He smiled, dainty lips touched with gloss, and walked towards this proud father of three.

A gust of wind whipped by as he reached the taller man's side, molding the soft fabric of the skirt against curved hips and smooth legs. A hand reached up on reflex, sweeping back bright ginger hair. The train rounded a corner.

"He'll be all right," came a murmur, so distinctly feminine in both tone and voice.

Harry Potter turned around and looked at him. Or rather, at her. The trembling boy of seventeen had grown into a reliable man of thirty-seven. He was taller, his shoulders broader, and the scars that adorned his body greater in number. But his eyes, a sparkling emerald, remained the same as those of the boy who faced him so many years ago. Full of life, full of hope, and full of innocent naivete.

"I know he will," came the reply, a deep voice of tenor so emotional it was sickening. But years and years of exposure have made this the norm, and an unfaltering smile watched as fingertips absentmindedly brushed over an old, nostalgic wound. The very first gift he gave to the crying infant, to this man who was smiling back at him so lovingly now.

He wondered what the heralded hero in front of him would do, should the truth ever be revealed.

One pale, thin arm lifted itself, touching upon a strong jawline, slowly cupping the radiant face.

He wondered how this blissfully ignorant man would react, upon realizing just _who_ was on the receiving end of those countless passionate kisses, touches of utmost intimacy, and complete surrenderings of body, heart, and soul.

Slowly, while snaking languidly upward, delicate fingers brushed away the few stray bangs around the forehead area.

He wondered if this man would break, knowing that the woman he loved with all his being was in fact the same man he loathed enough to kill.

Gently nudging the larger, more calloused hand aside, the one known to the world as Ginevra Molly Potter softly traced the lightning shaped marking of her husband's temple. Said husband smiled, eyes lazily drifting shut, arms fondly wrapping around a thin waist.

It was a love so fake it was hate, a hate so powerful it was love.

The gypsy woman's voice echoed in his mind. Ah, the irony. Needle point indeed it was, this twisted turn of fate, cruel and unusual in its nature. But this was just another facade, another identity in the countless he had assumed. Once shunned as an orphan by the name of Tom Riddle, later infamously known as the Dark Lord Voldemort, and now...

He smiled. Really, he loved this man in front of him, this man who so firmly believe that _all was well_. Loved him so much in the nightly dreams where he caressed and held the cold, rotting corpse of a Boy Who No Longer Lived.

The special mark of his personal branding had not reacted in nineteen years, but fate had given him this third chance at life, a rebirth he will not waste. Yet until the time is ripe, revenge would have to wait. And wait he will, for when the broken bond reforms, the eternal link between their souls, once again, revived.

Patiently, for the moment when his mere touch would once again bring pain and agony to Harry Potter's scar.


End file.
